LHC to Resume Search for ‘God Particle’

It’s all-systems-go for the Large Hadron Collider, just a week after a bird threatened to gum up the proceedings with a piece of bread.

The world’s largest particle accelerator has been under repair for over a year due to an electrical failure back in September 2008, but it’s now gearing up to resume operations, according to CNN.

The 17-mile collider will circulate high-energy proton beams beginning later this month, according to Steve Myers, CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology. The goal: to explore questions about the origins of the universe.

Myers said in the report that the full scientific program for the LHC will probably last over 20 years, though scientists hope to discover new properties of nature in short order–possibly as early as 2010. (Image credit: CERN)